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Disabled limiting beliefs

Rebecca, a white woman with brown hair, is sitting in her wheelchair.00.
Image description: Rebecca, a white woman with brown hair, wears a light green, dark green, light blue, light pink, red and brown diamond patterned closed brown buttoned cardigan with a green faux fur colour, red trousers and shoes . She also wears a green faux fur hat and holding a green bag. She is sitting in her wheelchair that has peach spoke guards with multicoloured butterflies dotted around on it. Rebecca is under a tree her legs are placed over the right armrest. She is smiling at the camera

Dear Reader,

At times life can feel a bit more challenging. Sometimes we know exactly why, and at other times it can be hard to pin point what is causing us to feel this fogginess and it feels excruciating when trying to lift this weight. No matter how we find ourselves at a low ebb, our self-chatter can massively contribute to how we feel. Like a lot of people, when finding myself in tricky waters, I can be the biggest mean girl to myself and this can just intensify my thoughts and feels like I’m standing on quick sand- it is all too ready to swallow me up!

I think a lot of disabled peers will say that internalised ableism can add a bloody great big layer to some of the not so glittery thoughts that we may experience from time to time. There seems to be a real under expectation of disabled people and therefore sometimes feel like we have to work harder to be seen and heard. This is witnessed time and time again in work environments, in education systems, in the travel industry, in relationships and what this looks like, in the media’s representation of disability… it’s endless -all whereby we, as disabled people, are prescribed to the type of role we play by society. However this narrative manifests, it can enable some of us to believe that we are not worthy or good enough or shouldn’t be where we are. I’ve done this countless of times, listening to self-doubt and the cunning charm of internalised ableism way too much, thinking that I should back out of something. It’s exhausting! But rather than realising that we are experiencing internalised ableism, these thoughts can latch themselves on to us and become part of the beliefs that we hold about ourselves.

It’s important to recognise the flavour of our thoughts, where they might have come from and how we can change this up, not letting them consume us.

I’ve listed below, some of the disabled limiting beliefs that I can experience and how I try to break through them. If you find yourself identifying with any of the following limiting beliefs, I hope that you find the tips/reminders that I pair them with helpful.

  • A limiting belief that I have sometimes is in regards to voicing my rights. Enquiring about wheelchair access or saying what I need can feel daunting sometimes. I never know how requests will be received, sometimes with a more than helpful attitude and others with a huff and a puff, when, say, putting down a portable ramp, or even hearing an out and out ‘no.’ The latter two responses can make me feel as if I shouldn’t say anything or shouldn’t be there. But over the last few years I’ve realised just how much my needs and wants are valid and more than that, I deserve the right to be there just as much as the next person. This is a reminder I repeat to myself when get that voice in my head is trying its best to get me swallowing my words. Disabled rights are human rights. I’ll admit, it’s a difficult thing to do but when you start just saying how things are, the less scary it can become- do not ever put your rights second!
  • My speech impediment is something that I can be really conscious off and get a little anxious over whether people will understand me. Last year, I got tired of confining myself I wanted to give myself a bit more freedom. One day I started just to speak into the camera. I normally just post text along with photos online to express my thoughts, never sharing my actual voice, so this was heart pounding stuff. Although very apprehensive at first when I started, I began to settle into it. It showed how I, and I’m sure that I am not alone in this, can magnify things in my mind and they can feel a bit more difficult than they actually are. When I posted this video online, people were absolutely lovely in response. Note to self- don’t spend too much time brewing over something and don’t give into your own doubt! I really want to do a bit more of this in the year ahead.
Rebecca, a white woman with brown hair is sitting in her wheelchair
Image description: Rebecca wears the same outfit as image 1. Her legs are swung over the right armrest of her wheelchair
  • Another limiting belief that I have is around time. A subject that I always get caught up on. My Cerebral Palsy means that it can take me a bit more time to do certain things. Sometimes this can really bother me, especially if in my head I am a step or two ahead. In them moments I believe that I should move faster. The more I try to do this though, the less my body becomes uncoordinated and so tasks take even longer to complete. The thing is everyone is running on their own clock and really…isn’t it about deserving yourself the time you need rather than folding yourself in two to meet an unrealistic time frame? It’s time (sorry!) to start setting realistic deadlines so you won’t burn out and that you can fully focus on the task in hand without forever clock watching.
  • I think this one is applicable to all humans really and surrounds the feeling of being enough. Coming from a disabled person’s perspective, a layer of this could be due to the structure of society and how the word, disabled, is branded. Looping back to the start of this blog post and the little expectations that non-disabled people can have of disabled people, it can make disabled people doubt themselves or believe that they need to prove who they are in order to be seen as enough. It was only through my twenties really that I realised that I didn’t need to do this. Discovering the social model of disability, which says that people are disabled by societial barriers, was a game-changer for me. I learnt that my disability wasn’t at fault. It was the world around me.  I didn’t need to change. I didn’t need to prove who I was. It’s really easy cheesy to say try and not be moved/powered over by stigma but really just being yourself is all you can be. You are enough as you are.

I hope that by sharing some of my limiting beliefs and I how am trying to break them down a little and not letting them have as much power, perhaps it’s given you food for thought as to how to tackle your own limiting beliefs. And remember there just beliefs, not the truths

All my love XX

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Disability Pride: It’s More Than Inhaling The Good Stuff

Rebecca, a white woman with long brown hair, sits in her wheelchair
Image description: Rebecca, a white woman with brown hair, wears a rainbow coloured strap dress-above the knee , rainbow plimsolls and sunglasses with a rainbow rim and a pink crochet hat with daisies dotted around on it. She is sitting in her wheelchair that has peach spoke guards with multicoloured butterflies dotted around on it. A lake is behind her 

Dear Readers,

I rest confidently in my disabled identity, it’s a part of me. It’s at the core of who I am.  I love the community- how we can relate to each other, the similar threads that holds us together that tells us that we’re not alone-. I love the creative innovation within disabled individuals, which enables them and then the rest of us to access, enjoy and explore the world, I love the disabled joy that comes with and from this. This all equals my Disability Pride. Though there’s another part that doesn’t always seem that to fit this description, on the surface, yet I know that it is a key part.

 I tend sometimes to have an all or nothing approach to certain things-when something good is happening and something occurs that throws me off track, my mind, my energy, my mood is redirected and I can’t seem to find my groove and a balance (though with my Cerebral Palsy and coordination being my number one difficulty, it’s not that much of a puzzle as to why I find this hard!). So, when my disability is showing an unwelcoming face, I feel like a fraud when I’ve said I’m disabled and proud.

Feeling like I’ve failed as a proud disabled person can look like when my body is a few steps behind where I think I should be, going slower than I would like, or when I wish I could to seemingly simple tasks like putting in my own earrings or when something is inaccessible, wanting my access needs to evaporate. I talk myself out of identifying as the person who claimed that she was disabled and proud.  How can I be when I have such thoughts? I think.

To be disabled is often thought to be awful, tragic, a life sentence. It’s in those passing comments, it’s in the swarm of accolades others think you deserve just for existing. It’s in people’s inability to understand that you go about your day in a not-so different way to a non-disabled person, just with a few adaptations. It’s in how the media portrays disabled people using those demeaning expressions such as “In spite of their disability” or “Beating the odds” or “Their disabled but” and how we are represented in films.  The associations that are made with the word disabled then, to non-disabled people and to some disabled people can make it seem illogical as to why someone would have pride with their disabledness. Surely with my above feelings of being woeful about certain parts of my disability, I am playing into this narrative?

This is another thing that can be thrown into the mix of Disability Pride. This term can feel so radical and for those who believes that disability is still a taboo subject (though it never was), this is perhaps too radical. This opinion can get trickled down to those of us who are disabled and proud, making us question our identity and we feed on naysayers’ words. When I have done this, I hear the familiar knock of the sound of failure at my door, telling me that I am again falling short when I have said what I’m disabled and proud.   It feels like I have wriggled out of this proud skin, no longer feeling the person sitting confidently in her wheelchair, with her arms outstretched or demonstrating a sassy pose that screams “This is me.”

Though I am beginning to learn that rather than disability pride being a fixed state, it is fluid and covers a spectrum. And when thinking of it isn’t this term all about recognizing and taking stock of all of the complexities that are in our lives as well as reveling in all the blissful moments?

So, when I’m in a reflective mood and I feel myself wondering down a path that doesn’t spark joy, instead of thinking that I’m a disabled and proud fraudster, I will try to think right now I am at a different stage of my pride and that’s okay.

If you have had, or are having a hard time with your disability pride, please know that this isn’t you failing. Disability Pride is so much more than just inhaling all what’s good

All my love XX

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Disability Pride Month

Image description: Rebecca, a white woman with brown hair, wear a colourful dress with a with polo, red shoes and a colourful beaded necklace. She sits in her wheelchair, with rainbow spoke guards,. with her arms raised above her head. Rebecca is in the garden surrounded by flowers.

July is Disability Pride Month.  At first glance, Disability Pride, can be considered as unwavering confidence, however this is one small part and may not always necessarily mean fierce confidence.

When I first think about Disability Pride I think about what my disability means to me. I think about my Cerebral Palsy and how it is a part of me. A big part of me that shapes my every day. From varying ways of my tremors, to the amount of energy I have, to the level of speed at which I work at, my CP looks different everyday too.  By getting to know and acknowledging the different parts of my CP, I know myself better.

Getting to know and understanding different aspects of my disability, I am able to communicate my disability with others. Though this may sound like a basic thing, it can also require courage to say such things, especially to people who may not be familiar with your disability. I first wrote on this blog about my CP—likening my CP to a lifelong teacher-. Though some of my thoughts may have matured from a few years back, learning about disability from different perspectives in the community.

Image description: Rebecca wears the same outfit. Her legs hangs over the right armrest of her wheelchair.

I’d like to think that through clear, honest and insightful conversations about disability, stigma can be reduced, challenging views about disabled people. It is a way to really see disabled people. It is a way to hear disabled people’s voice. By inviting such conversations change can start to be implemented.

Access can be put in place, in one vain in terms of physical access, i.e. lifts, ramps, hearing loops, audio descriptions, but also in terms of institutional access, i.e. work, education. Yes, a lot of places do have such facilities in place, but it’s not everywhere, and society cannot be branded as fully accessible and inclusive if not all of society is accessible and inclusive.

We have seen over the last year just how much disabled access have been but to the bottom of the pile. For example, it has been observed just how quickly things were put in place for people to work from home when in lockdown, even though this has been it requested by disabled people time and time again for such adjustments to be in place. Other clear indicators that have demonstrated that disabled access have been seen as unimportant is when, in another example, some restrictions were eased and cafes and restaurants were allowed to offer outside dining and tables and chairs were placed on pavements, which meant that this made it impossible for people with mobility aids to navigates streets that had tables and chairs on them. Or even more shocking when these tables and chairs have been set up in disabled bays! Need I say more!

Though I have given a few examples of inaccessibility, this must not overshadow our pride and celebrations in how far we have come. We can take stock of these achievements and can act as a reminder that access can improve. This pride and the celebrations of the disability community can also inform and trigger thinking points in others about how they can help accessibility for disabled people be better.

Image description: Rebecca still wearing the same outfit is siting in her wheelchair.

Events such as Disability Pride Month is an opportunity to highlight identity or what you have (depending on whether you prefer identity-first or person first language) is not shameful or dirty or something to keep under wraps. It is to highlight a part of who you are. It is to highlight the beautiful community that disabled people have built and the milestones we have crossed together. It is to highlight how we can continue to move forward and keep campaigning for change. This is what Disability Pride Month means to me.

I hope you have a lovely Disability Pride Month, however you are celebrating.

All my love XX